Dark Inspiration Read online

  He wouldn’t let Laura’s actions upset the plan. He’d worked far too hard to rebuild his family. He had it all under control before the lightning storm. Vern released him from Alexander’s attic trap and Sarah and the girls were still here with him, bound for eternity. But after the storm cremated Sarah’s body and set her free, the girls had become a handful. They were increasingly difficult to control without the undercurrent of calming maternal care.

  Vern, the poor bastard, wouldn’t be any help. His twisted hands would never complete the rituals needed to bind a new woman’s soul to his. A fortuitous foreclosure put Vern out on his ass. The next owners fit the bill. The Lockes were perfect.

  The plan would have Doug sacrifice Laura and perform the old Egyptian ritual to keep her soul here. Mabron had worked him up to it through the rabbit and fox. Vern, making his last contribution to the family cause, would have been the warm-up for the main event. But now there was no need for practice. Mabron’s skills would flow unfiltered through Doug’s hands. When he was done, Laura would be perfect.

  Mabron had nursed a hope that Laura would make the sacrifice willingly. He’d let the girls enter her dreams. He’d allowed them to create those touching moments in the nursery. Mabron himself had shaped the saccharine scene in the cemetery where the leaves fell on Laura’s hands. He had hoped for the sake of the girls, she would choose to share eternity with them, only meeting her afterlife husband when it was too late.

  That scenario would not play out, but no matter. The binding need not be voluntary, it was just stronger if it was. He would still win.

  Inside the barn, he flopped Laura down on the grill over the bathtub. She let out a soft moan. Mabron removed her shoes and dropped them to the floor. The taxidermist kit lay rolled open on the workbench. Mabron grabbed a scalpel. Starting at her feet, he cut away Laura’s clothing with slow, precise incisions. Socks. Jeans. T-shirt. He marveled at Laura’s beautiful skin, so soft and without a single scar. Quick snips removed her bra and panties. His pulse quickened. He was tempted to touch her, to caress her for his own gratification. But he held back. Not yet. Not while she was still warm and breathing. Sarah has been perfectly satisfying after mounting. Laura would be the same.

  Mabron bound her hands and feet to the grill with short lengths of rope. He slipped one more strip around her neck and positioned it to expose the carotid artery. It thumped away beneath her white skin. She’d bleed out quickly from there and he could easily repair the incision when he worked the skin.

  He breathed in the familiar scent of dried blood and pickling alcohol and sprouted a twisted smile. This was going to be magnificent.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Laura shivered herself to consciousness. Her head pounded. The cold steel grid pressed into her back and buttocks like it wanted to cube her. Where was she? Where were her clothes?

  The light hurt her eyes as she forced them open. The double vision passed and she made out the barn’s roof rafters. She had a partial view of the barn interior over the lip of the tub. How did she…

  She remembered. The graveyard. The fire. Theresa attacked. Doug wielding that poker in the darkness. She tried to sit up and choked herself on the rope at her neck. She flexed her feet and hands with no better result.

  Doug appeared from the side and looked down on her. But she knew it wasn’t Doug. The smile, the expression, above all the red irises, all said someone or something else was inside pulling the strings. She knew that instant Mabron had not passed over.

  “Where’s Doug?” she said.

  “Doug is gone.” Mabron polished a scalpel with a faded red cloth. “It’s just the two of us tonight.”

  She searched the face above her for a trace of her husband, some clue that he might be inside trying to get back. Nothing.

  She should have been scared, lying naked, bound and defenseless. But instead she was furious. The girls, her husband, her friend were all taken by this bastard. She would not be next. She struggled against the bindings. They held fast.

  “Now first,” Mabron said, “I’ll need to bleed you out.” He placed the unsharpened edge of the scalpel against her neck. She felt the cool steel pulse against her artery. “A little slice here and you’ll gush cleanly into the tub. You’ll get tired and pass out. It will be a peaceful, lovely way to go.” Mabron pulled the knife away from her neck and returned to polishing it.

  “Then I’ll perform the binding ritual. Doug had everything I need ready for Nephew Vern, but he won’t be necessary now.”

  Vern, Laura thought. The skin on the wall. The previous owner of Galaxy Farm.

  “Your body will become a permanent tribute to your mortal life. Don’t worry. When I mount you you’ll be so lifelike…you will be forever young in the eyes of the world. But only mine will have the pleasure. The two of us will move into the turret room.”

  Laura shuddered at the repulsive thought.

  “I’ll bind you here with Constance and Elizabeth. They need a mother. They’ve been distraught since they lost their first mother. You’ll need to help them. You’ve seen how much they care for you.”

  “Under your manipulation,” Laura spat. “Who knows how they really feel.”

  Mabron stuffed a rag into Laura’s mouth. She gagged and tried to spit it out.

  “We’ll have time to talk later,” Mabron said. “Plenty of time.”

  “Doug! Don’t move!”

  Sheriff Mears stood in the open barn door, pistol leveled at Mabron’s head. His eyes flicked to Vern’s flayed skin on the drying line and then back to Mabron. “Put your hands up and step back from the tub.”

  Mabron grimaced, but did not look back at the sheriff. The red in his eyes dulled back to brown. He tucked the scalpel into the corner of the grill.

  “Thank God!” he cried. He turned to the sheriff with a convincing look of panic on his face. “I’ve got to get Laura free. Vern is crazy!”

  Sheriff Mears dropped the weapon an inch. Mabron fiddled with the ropes tying Laura to the grate. Mears took one step closer. Laura attempted a muffled scream, but Mabron choked it off with pressure on the rope at her neck.

  “Doug,” Sheriff Mears said. He strung the name out and it sounded a bit like a question. “Step back from the tub.”

  Mabron punched his panic up a notch. “No time. He’s coming back. Help me get her free. He’ll kill her!”

  Mabron had positioned himself to consistently block Mears’ view of the tub. Mears dropped his weapon to point at the ground. He stepped around Mabron’s right side and closer. Too close.

  Mabron’s eyes flashed red. He spun around and his hands moved like lightning. He grabbed Sheriff Mears at the collar with both hands and yanked him forward. The sheriff’s head hit the side of the tub with a crack. Blood gushed from a jagged gash at his hairline. Mears crumpled down below Laura’s sightline.

  Mabron hunched down below the rim of the tub. There was a metallic click. The bark of the sheriff’s 9mm broke the silence. Mabron rose back into view. He stared at the floor like an artist appraising his work. He stepped over to the barn door, rolled it shut and threw the bolt to lock it. He returned back to the tub. He bent over so his eyes burned inches from Laura’s.

  Mabron grabbed her head at the temple, strong as a clamp. She tried to yell but only coughed against the choking rag. Mabron bent closer.

  “Now, without further interruptions…”

  The icy scalpel tip traced a practice incision against her skin.

  “In a few minutes,” Mabron said, “you’ll be mine in both dimensions.” His eyes burned like two blacksmith’s forges.

  The blade’s pressure on her skin increased. Then Mabron’s hand jerked away. The scalpel clattered against the grill and fell into the bottom of the cast iron tub with a ping. A look of utter surprise crossed Mabron’s face. He snapped straight up. The tip of the fireplace poker stuck out of his chest. Blood ran down around the front of his shirt like a pulsing waterfall. His lips moved in indecipherable silent words.
The flames in his eyes extinguished and Mabron dropped to the ground.

  Behind him stood a shimmering spirit, more distinct than the girls had been, even with the static generator. A beautiful young woman with a face lovely as a china doll, hair cut close just below her ears. Her white ruffled dress was immaculate. There was no mistaking Sarah Hutchington.

  Sarah reached down through the grill and grabbed the scalpel. She pulled it back up and slit the rope that bound Laura’s right arm. She placed the scalpel in Laura’s freed hand.

  Laura wanted to thank her, to tell her that her children were free. But the gag in her mouth kept her from it.

  Sarah shimmered, like TV reception that was about to head south. She leaned down in and whispered in Laura’s ear.

  Tears formed on Laura’s eyes. She nodded her head to say “Yes, I understand.”

  Sarah looked down on her with a sad smile and faded away.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Two hours later, Galaxy Farm was bathed in the flashing blue lights of a half-dozen police cruisers. The barn was roped off with a mile of yellow crime scene tape. Police radios crackled and spat from all over the property. The wind brought a whiff of the graveyard fire back to the house, but the swarm of officials were too preoccupied to notice. The sheriff was dead in the county’s first triple homicide.

  Laura had put on an old college sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. She had applied a few streaks of her husband’s blood to the sweatshirt. She stood by an ambulance stretcher and held Theresa’s hand. Theresa’s face was pale, but she had a grip like steel.

  “It’s just a little concussion,” she said. “I don’t see why I have to go to the hospital. I can just go home…”

  “Absolutely not,” Laura said. “You’re going to get fully checked out. Your father is already waiting there for you.” She glanced around to be sure she wasn’t overheard. “You know your story?”

  “Please,” Theresa said. “We’ve been over it a dozen times.”

  “Perfect,” Laura said.

  Two paramedics arrived at each side of the gurney. Theresa gave Laura’s hand a tug. She locked her eyes with Laura’s.

  “It’s over now,” Theresa said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  As the paramedics loaded Theresa into the ambulance, a tall black man in a rumpled charcoal suit approached Laura. A frayed toothpick stuck out of the left side of his mouth. He pulled it out with his two forefingers to address her.

  “Mrs. Locke, I’m Detective Williams. Are you up to answering a few questions?”

  Laura nodded and led the detective to the front porch. They sat on the stoop.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the detective said. “Can you tell me what happened?” He popped the toothpick back in his mouth.

  “Theresa came over for a visit this evening,” Laura began. “I hadn’t seen Doug since I got home, but that wasn’t unusual. After an hour or so we went to the barn to look for him. We rolled open the door and surprised him arranging something that looked like a human skin on the wall. Doug had a crazy look in his eyes. He came after us with that old fireplace poker.

  “He hit Theresa first, then he hit me. He knocked me out and I woke up on the floor of the barn to the sound of shouting. The sheriff and Doug were in a fight. There was a shot and the sheriff was dead. That’s when I ran Doug through with the poker.”

  Detective Williams rolled the toothpick to the other side of his mouth and waited to hear more. Laura wasn’t playing that game. She used silence to get her kids to keep a story going all the time. She’d change tack instead.

  “Was that really human skin on the wall?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Detective Williams said. “Vern Pugh from next door. You know him?”

  Laura shook her head.

  “You notice any strange behavior from your husband lately?”

  “He was distant, spent a lot of time by himself,” Laura said. “I just thought he was writing his novel. Nothing like…” she pointed at the barn, “…that. What was the sheriff doing here anyway?”

  “His car is parked at Vern’s. He went there to pick him up. We guess he couldn’t find him and the trail led him here, where your husband had already killed him.”

  Detective Williams sighed and stood up. She could tell that Williams had ruled her out as anything other than a woman defending herself. He spit the tattered toothpick from his mouth. He pulled another one from his pocket.

  “Wrong week to quit smoking,” he said. “We’ll have the barn sealed off for a while for the investigation. We’ll be in touch with any information we uncover. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “And I for yours,” Laura said.

  The detective nodded and went back to the barn. Laura leaned back against a post. If Theresa could be as believable, she would pull this off, and be able to keep her promise to Sarah.

  Chapter Sixty

  “Are you sure about this?” Theresa said. Three months after the terrible night at Galaxy Farm, Theresa was fully recovered. She was dressed in coveralls that had dirt stains from the knees down.

  “A promise is a promise,” Laura said. She wiped her filthy hands on her jeans.

  It was near midnight and they both stood on the porch of the house, the house that Laura had thought was so beautiful the first time she saw it. It wasn’t beautiful anymore. She had explored the turret room after the police left that awful night. The dread she felt in the turret room had departed with Mabron’s spirit. She had found the cache of taxidermidied animals in the attic, the box of sick mementos and texts. The depth of Mabron’s depravity became apparent, as well as the extent that Doug had joined him in it. No house that ever held that much sickness could ever be anything but black.

  She had also found Doug’s manuscript for his novel. Hundreds of pages of random letters, not a word among them. Whatever he thought he was creating, it wasn’t there. How far Mabron had burrowed into his mind, and what seeds he had laid there, she would never know for sure.

  “You coming in with me?” Laura asked.

  Theresa gave her head a shake. “Nope. It’s all yours.”

  Laura entered the house and passed by the new collection on the living room floor without a glance. She went straight to the nursery, sat at her desk and closed her eyes.

  Since the night Mabron was finally exorcised, the girls had come to Laura every evening. They might have been controlled by Mabron, but they did not pass over to the other side when his spirit was banished. They were glad he was gone but happier still that Laura was there for them. Every night they came to play with their new mother. In their eyes, she was the only mother they had ever had. They had somehow melded Laura and Sarah Hutchington into one being. Their bond was so close that Laura could summon them now.

  Laura cleared her mind. “Constance. Elizabeth,” she called. The back of her neck tingled instantly. The two girls appeared at her feet, hazy full-body apparitions. Without Mabron draining their energy, they could coalesce without the boost of the static generator, though Laura could not hear them when they spoke. They came to her smiling and put one head on each shoulder.

  Laura would not deny how she loved seeing them each night. Some evenings they would play simple games together; rolling a ball, building with blocks, playing jacks. Other nights she would just watch them play together, just the way any mother would her children. Freeing them from Mabron had only enhanced the maternal bond she felt.

  But this was not how they were supposed to be, half living, half dead. And it wasn’t how Laura was supposed to live, nurturing a family that would never grow. She had put off fulfilling her promise long enough.

  “Girls,” she said. The two raised their heads from her shoulders. A lump swelled in Laura’s throat. “You know that I love you both very much.”

  They both smiled and their translucent lips mouthed, “We love you.”

  Tears welled in Laura’s eyes. “Something scary will happen tonight. Somethin
g that might hurt and confuse you. But when you feel lost, listen. Follow the voice you remember and trust.”

  The girls looked at each other in fear. Their lips moved too fast for Laura to understand, but it made no difference. Tears rolled down Laura’s cheeks and she headed for the living room. The girls followed close behind, mouthing questions Laura could not answer.

  Laura and Theresa has spent the afternoon and evening creating the collection on the living room floor. It had taken that long to excavate the twins’ graves and exhume their remains with any level of respect. Now the girls cream-and-gray bones lay in a pile on the floor, two skulls on top.

  Laura cut open a bag of rock salt, salt from the water system the house had never needed. But Sarah had convinced Laura’s subconscious it did, so that a ready defense from Mabron would be available. Laura poured the salt around and over the bones.

  Then she picked up a can of barbeque starter fluid and squirted it all over the bone pile. Some of the salt melted into slag on contact. The twins tugged at her arms, demanding answers.

  Laura slid a locket from her pocket. It was the one from the attic. Laura had torn out Mabron’s picture and replaced it with one of the two twins taken just before they drowned. She popped it open and laid it on top of the bone pile.

  Laura pulled out the lighter, the slim gold model Theresa had given her. It was the one Sarah had tricked her subconscious into desiring, like the books of matches she’d been obsessed with carrying, so that a spark for Mabron’s immolation would always be available. She flicked it and a flame ignited.

  “Go your mother, girls,” Laura sobbed. She dropped the lighter on the wet pyramid of bones. An inferno whooshed to life as the starter fluid ignited.

  The girls screamed, and this time Laura could hear the high-pitched wail. Their bodies wavered and they grabbed each other in panic. Light as a butterfly, they rose in a slow counterclockwise spiral around the fire, crying in terror.